You don't have to be an experienced rambler to enjoy the benefits of walking!
If you’re keen to get out and explore the great outdoors, Medway has some wonderful landscapes, features and open spaces for avid walkers and adventurous families.
On this page, we feature a selection of countryside parks and nature reserves that are enjoyable to visit all year. You don't have to be an experienced rambler to enjoy the benefits of walking and to help to dust off the cobwebs.
Eight of Medway's Parks are amongst the best in the UK. For more information, read our press release.
Capstone Farm Country Park
Capstone Farm Country Park is one of Medway's finest green spaces, offering wonderful opportunities for walking, running, cycling and much more. As you walk around the former farmland on the North Downs, you feel a million miles from the nearby urban areas of Medway.
The park has children’s play areas, marked trim trails, mountain bike tracks, bridal ways and a network of footpaths, as well as a café and a fishing lake. It’s packed with ancient woodland, old orchards, meadows and hedgerows.
Winners of the Green Flag Award 2021/22.
Riverside Country Park
Riverside is one of Medway's beautiful country parks and an ideal location for a walk, run or cycle.
The park covers 100 hectares alongside the Medway Estuary, including Motney Hill and Berengrave Local Nature Reserve.
There are various habitats within the park, including mudflats and salt marsh, ponds and reed-beds, grassland and scrub, which provide a haven for wildlife.
The estuary has special protection as part of the Medway Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and is internationally important for wintering birds that thrive on the mudflats. The salt marshes have a specialised ecology and act as high tide roost sites.
Winners of Green Flag Award 2021/22
RSPB Northward Hill Reserve & Cliffe Pools
Medway and its marshlands are an important area for birds and attracts visiting bird watching enthusiasts keen to observe heron, marsh harriers, lapwing, little egrets, nightingales and more.
The wood has the largest heronry in the UK, with more than 150 pairs of grey heron nesting in the treetops and almost 50 pairs of little egrets.
The reserve overlooking the Thames Estuary is a working farm with cows and sheep, surrounded by scrubland that's rich in nightingales and whitethroats.
There's also a lovely bluebell wood and a large rookery.
Nashenden Down
If stunning views are your thing, Kent Wildlife Trust’s Nashenden Down reserve near Borstal won’t disappoint.
Just look how happy these four-legged visitors are in its 55 hectares of former arable land that is now bustling with nature, wild flowers and grazing animals.
The site is free to access and includes a 3.5km marked circular walk. It can be reached via the North Downs Way footpath.
Hoo Peninsula – North Kent Marshes/Saxon Shore Way
Enjoy a walk in the North Kent Marshes that inspired Charles Dickens, one of the most important natural wetlands in northern Europe.
Sandwiched between the Thames and the Medway, Hoo has long been a strategic location for defence, and walkers can explore its de-commissioned power stations and derelict military forts, as well as its marshlands rich in wildlife.
On Discover Britain’s short walk from the village of Upnor, you can explore the changing face of the river and its marshlands that also attracted painters including Turner and Hogarth. Or why not see Explore Kent's guide for a Hoo Peninsula Walk. Alternatively explore more of the Saxon Shore Way, which runs through Medway's marshland on its ancient route from Gravesend to East Sussex.
Ranscombe Farm Reserve
Whether it be enjoying carpets of bluebells in the spring, summer picnics in a sun-filled glade, or autumn walks in misty woodland, Ranscombe can offer it all. And if you enjoy wild flowers, the reserve is famous for them…
This 230-hectare reserve on the stunning North Downs has 10km of footpaths to explore across ancient farmland, pockets of chalk grassland and coppice woods with stunning views across the Medway Gap and Luddesdown valley.
The site is famous for its extremely unusual collection of rare wild plants, especially arable wildflowers and orchids.
England Coastal Path
The England Coastal Path Project is well underway and when it is completed will be the one of the longest coastal trails in the world.
We’re working with Natural England to deliver the trail and create new paths linking Grain with the rest of the peninsula as well as creating new access to areas of countryside and coast.
We’re also working on extending the Thames Path Trail from Woolwich to Grain, to create a trail ‘From Source to Sea’.
For more information visit this link.
Health Walks
Walking is free, fun and good for the mind and body - it's also a great way to socialise. Medway Public Health Team organises free health walks throughout Medway so you get all the benefits in friendly, supportive groups.
For more information on Medway Health Walks, visit Medway Council's website.
Public Greenspaces and Parks & The Rochester Trail
There are many greenspaces and parks in Medway to enjoy.
Visitors can enjoy The Rochester Greenspaces Trail and follow the 6 mile (9.5km) route from the heart of Rochester to Borstal.
If you are visiting the area and want to find the one closest to you to enjoy, visit Medway Council's website for more information.
